ABSTRACT In the fall of 1991, The Asociación Cultural Hispanoamericana (ACHA), Florida Community College of Jacksonville, and Duval County Schools jointly sponsored the first local competition for middle school, high school, and college level Spanish students in northeast Florida. The goal of the contest was to provide a forum for students to demonstrate proficiency in Spanish and to promote language learning. Students participated in the areas of speaking, reading, culture, grammar, listening, and writing. The authors of this paper were assigned to develop the writing section of the contest and to coordinate the actual event. This paper reports on the process of developing a proficiency‐oriented writing contest, as well as a system of assessment of that writing based on a set of rubrics for each level of writing.